COLOMBIA: Country Expects To Regain FMD-free Status In November

(RTTNews) - The Colombian Agriculture Minister Aurelio Iragorri reported that the International Organization for Animal Health (OIE) accepted the technical proposal presented by the South American country to recover its free of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) status.

Iragorri said that Colombia submitted to the OIE Scientific Commission the measures implemented by the country to eradicate a FMD outbreak that emerged in June in the municipalities of Tame, Arauca, Yacopí and Tibacuy in the department of Cundinamarca and also in the rural area of Cúcuta, near the border with Venezuela.

"The OIE acknowledged that the outbreak ended in Colombia, which is why the recertification process begins. It consists of establishing a containment area. After that, it would take around 90 days to recover the status, which we estimate to be in November," the minister said.

The containment area is defined as a delimited geographical zone that concentrates all the suspected cases of an outbreak in a country or region free of foot-and-mouth disease in which vaccination is applied or not. After establishing this area, the sanitary authority groups all the cases observed to minimize the consequences of the disease in the country.

Last week, Iragorri asked OIE to reconsider Colombia's status as an FMD free-zone after it managed to control a recent outbreak. ICA confirmed that 3,325 livestock slaughterings occurred in the regions affected. According to the minister, since then there had been no further outbreaks.